


Chilled

by entanglednow



Category: Being Human
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-28
Updated: 2009-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cold Sunday mornings, and tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chilled

Mitchell had gone out, braving the unexpected Sunday morning ice, and the slippery steps out front. The reason Mitchell had gone out was because there was no milk for tea (or cereal), no bread for toast, and no beverage substitutes, because the last of the coffee had exploded when Annie was busy being a poltergeist.

Mitchell had gone, because George had gotten up ridiculously late, and had thus missed out on the whole bread/milk/coffee situation firsthand. He was now, flicking through the best that Sunday morning television had to offer.

Every so often Annie would slip to the window, pull the curtain aside, and frown.

"I didn't realise it was so icy out there this morning," she said the third time.

She didn't get to go and peer out of the window a fourth time. Because the door swung open, while she was debating whether to boil the kettle again.

Mitchell brought a wave of freezing air in with him, that made all the hair on George's arm stand up. The bag he was carrying rustled dejectedly in his grip.

"I thought you got lost," Annie said quietly.

Mitchell took his coat off, slowly, reluctantly, then made a miserable noise, and threw it up by the door.

"The shop may open at ten but there's no one on the tills til half past. They make you wander round for half an hour hoping you'll buy something else."

"You look absolutely frozen," she told him, and George wasn't sure whether he imagined the slight tinge of jealousy to the statement.

Mitchell grunted misery.

"I am exactly as cold as it is outside, and though I seriously doubt my blood can _actually_ freeze in my veins, leaving me a hilarious statue half way up the road, I didn't want to test that theory today."

Annie took his bag, though whether Mitchell actually noticed, or not, was debateable, because he left his hand in mid-air. She was, George hoped, going to use the milk to magically provide tea, like some sort of alchemist. Only hopefully with less work, and without the gold...bad analogy really.

Mitchell lifted his hands, and settled them on his face, seemed unhappy with whatever he found.

George twisted his head round until he could see him properly.

"Can't feel your face?"

"I can't feel _anything._ But I know I have hands, because I can _see_ them."

Mitchell slumped down on the couch, or _into the couch_ , might have been more accurate, hard enough to bounce George against the arm.

Annie appeared again, and pushed tea into his hand, which Mitchell at least managed to curl his fingers round and hold. It steamed up into his face.

"If that's hot I can't feel it. I think all the nerves are dead."

"Aren't all the nerves dead anyway?" George asked randomly. Annie handed him his own tea with a smile that made George rethink his discarded alchemy analogy.

"I've never had my deadness scientifically measured," Mitchell said archly.

George opened his mouth-

"No, you _cannot_ scientifically measure my deadness George."

"I wasn't going to say that," George protested, which was mostly a lie.

Mitchell raised the mug, and took a mouthful, the noise he made suggested it had been hotter than he expected.

He didn't stop drinking it though.

George pulled his feet up onto the sofa

He could feel Mitchell's leg through the bottom of his sock, and he really was freezing.

"Take your body temperature away, or I shall take advantage of it," Mitchell said with a strange, frosty blend, of misery, and warning.

George ignored him, and finished his own tea.

But, apparently, Mitchell was being serious.

George tried to look put upon, while Mitchell inflicted every cold inch of himself on George. Until he ended up squashed against the arm, with Mitchell draped over him like a cold, and not particularly comfortable, blanket.

George turned his head to protest the wilful mistreatment, and almost got a mouth full of cold hair.

"Even your hair is cold," George complained quietly, fingers poking at the half-curls, crisp and chill under his fingers.

"I left my hat upstairs, I only expected to be out twenty minutes, it's all your fault."

"How is it _my_ fault? I didn't use up the milk, it's Annie's seven million cups of tea that go cold, and no one drinks, that use up all the milk, and the tea, and the water."

Mitchell grumbled wordlessly against his shoulder, and passed over his empty mug, which George was completely bewildered where to put, until Annie slipped past and took it.

The remote had gotten lost somewhere under his thigh, George fished it out and started flicking.

"I think there's live skiing on somewhere."

Mitchell stole the remote, and dropped it over the back of the sofa. George made an unhappy noise, and waved 'what on earth am I going to do now' completely ineffectively, in a way that he knew made him look stupid. But Mitchell completely refused to move.

"Mitchell I need to-"

"No, you're providing a _valuable_ service."

"I can't change the channel now, do you realise you're forcing me to watch Masterchef."

"You _like_ Masterchef," Mitchell protested.

"But now you've _forced_ me to watch it, I have no choice in the matter, it's not the same, besides, I saw it last Thursday. It's the one where he burns his scallops and puts too much salt in his risotto."

Mitchell was laughing into his shoulder, he could feel the vibration.

George sighed and gave in, sank into the couch cushions. Sure enough the scallops were burned, _and_ he put too much salt in the risotto, again.

He turned his head sideways to complain.

Mitchell had fallen asleep against his shoulder.

The cold hand, twitching in the gap where George's shirt no longer met his jeans, gradually warmed, then got lost somewhere under the cotton, when Mitchell fidgeted.

George didn't move for a very long time.


End file.
